Tag Archives: homemaking

Oct 09 2012
4 Comments
celebrations, Halloween, holidays, homemaking

Halloween Treats

Tag Team Tompkins

Halloween decorating is coming along slowly this year…until motivation arrived in my mailbox today with my treats from Tag Team Tompkins! The Tompkins ladies (a mother & daughter team) turn hand lettering and paper cutting into gorgeous letterpress designs. These are (obviously) Halloween-themed, but they offer everyday designs, too. The paper is nice and thick and the letterpress impression is just perfect. I like that their shop is filled with classic black and white designs, but I love that they went all out with the silver ink on black paper for these. I’m going to hang up some twine over my desk and clip them up with tiny clothespins. (I hope it looks as good as it does in my mind.) Tomorrow, the Halloween decorating will happen. In the meantime, here is Presley enjoying her favorite October spot:

 

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Oct 03 2012
6 Comments
homemaking, what's for dinner

a new addition…to the kitchen

It’s here! It’s here!

Naoto & I have been talking about buying a Le Creuset pot for more than two years now…and last weekend, we finally ordered it. I don’t know why we waited so long. OK, I do know why we waited so long…these things are made to last forever (as in, if I ever have grandchildren who cook, they will be using this very pot!) and I just couldn’t decide what color I wanted! Most of my kitchen has cherry red accents, but the red LeCreuset is more orangey, so I just went with what I love–sunny yellow. It will look beautiful on a fall table full of hearty stew. And, I think it will look pretty on the stove in my blue kitchen. Plus, the color name is Dijon and really, is there a better mustard than Dijon?

As excited as I am about the arrival of our new kitchen workhorse, it couldn’t come at a worse time. Naoto works tonight, while I head back to the airport to welcome home our latest group of Honor Flight Chicago veterans. I work tomorrow night and Naoto works Friday night. I really want the new pot’s maiden voyage to be one that Naoto & I share together, so our first meal in our shiny pot of sunshine will have to wait.

But, we’ve already chosen our first recipe–Braciole! It will be my first attempt at classic Italian cooking…and I promise that I will participate more than usual in the preparation…usually I just grab a glass of wine and watch 😉

I will (hopefully) be back tomorrow with regularly scheduled postings…Mail Call and beautiful fall weather has taken over my life 🙂

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Sep 28 2012
2 Comments
adventures, what's for dinner

Kikuko Salad

When we traveled to Japan together last year, Naoto & his family introduced me to many new tastes, textures and flavor combinations. Some were pretty scary (I remember you, abalone!), some were pretty delicious (mmm…a hot dog surrounded by a flaky crust) but some were unforgettably tasty combinations that Naoto & I can recreate at home. This salad, which we named the Kikuko salad after my mother-in-law, is one of those crazy good combinations.

 

Kikuko salad

a head of iceberg lettuce

an 8oz package of kaiware (also known as radish sprouts and can be found in Asian grocery stores or substituted with pea sprouts found more commonly in regular grocery stores)

2 tomatoes

bran flakes (yes, the regular kind you find in the cereal aisle)

Kewpie mayonnaise (found in Asian grocery stores, I’m not sure there is a substitution for this…Japanese mayonnaise is slightly sweeter, richer and smoother than regular mayo)

 

Chop the iceberg lettuce into bite-sized pieces and put into serving bowl. Cut the sprouts in half and add in with the lettuce and mix well. Slice the tomatoes and place on top of the salad.

The bran flakes and Kewpie mayo are added at the table. Think of it like croutons and salad dressing.

 

If you’re anything like I was when this was placed before me at my mother-in-law’s table, you’re thinking:

What? Breakfast cereal on a salad? With mayonnaise?

But I’m serious when I say try it…because it’s delicious! The iceberg lettuce is crisp and fresh. The kaiware is slightly spicy, like a tiny mild radish. The tomatoes are bright and juicy. The bran flakes are sweet and crunchy. And the mayo is creamy and rich. Kikuko salad covers all of the taste bases.

If you try it, please let me know what you think! And…do you have any weird food combinations that you enjoy (but maybe others question)? Please share!

 

P.S. I’ll be back next week with a new Little Red Toolbox! It’s another Honor Flight week and I’m up to my ears in volunteer emails and veteran letters!

P.S. (part 2) Kewpie mayonnaise does contain MSG…so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, use sparingly. I personally have a numb tongue right now…

 

 

 

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Sep 27 2012
4 Comments
gardening, home is a 1970s apartment, homemaking

Home is a 1970s Apartment | The Autumn Balcony

My friend Peggy gifted us her old wicker loveseat last week. I am in love with the thing…it will be a perfect spot to cozy into with a good book next summer (and hopefully a few times this fall). New furniture means musical chairs–moving things around to make it work on the balcony. Since the spring, we’ve had a separate dining and seating areas out there. The wicker seat gives us more seating options for guests and makes it feel a little more living room-y out there. I love it.

Saturday, Naoto and I spent some time outside in the breezy sunshine trying to spruce things up on the balcony for fall. It’s that awkward time in the season when you have fall mums mixing with summery blooms, but–to me–the more blooms the better. (My mom was saying that she hasn’t bought a mum yet because her pink and purple petunias are still blooming like crazy…I told her I solved that problem by killing my petunias off in August!) Next spring, I think we will move the bird feeder and switch around the chairs and loveseat, but for now, we’re going to keep things as is (since most of the furniture will be coming in soon for the winter). I would also love to paint the floor grey–it’s this weird pale hospital-y green now–and get an all-weather area rug and outdoor pillows to make things even more comfortable out there.

The balcony is five by twenty feet, which is both big and small to me…big for an “urban” apartment and small for a girl who dreams of a country home with a wraparound porch. But it works for us to have a little cafe table for two and a seating area out there.

We were super-lucky to furnish and decorate the whole balcony with second hand furniture (the love seat, the green chairs and the black plant cart), sale items (the cafe set, shepherds hooks and all of the pots and plants) and gifts (the bird feeder and all of the bird houses were all made by my dad). We almost bought some stuff at Ikea when we first moved in, but my parents found the green chairs and table on Craigslist for half the price of ONE Ikea chair…isn’t that crazy?! We are so thankful to them for keeping an eye out for good second hand stuff!

Just for good measure (because all of the other posts have before & afters), here is what the balcony looked like when we first moved in…isn’t it amazing what a few flowers and some furniture can do?

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Sep 25 2012
5 Comments
gardening, handmade=happiness, homemaking

handmade is happiness #2

Our first autumn here, I asked my dad for one of his handmade bird feeders for a Christmas gift. I thought it would make a great addition to our balcony and it would give Presley and me some birdwatching opportunities during the winter. My parents have several feeders in their yard and it’s always fun to spot new birds when we visit. It turns out he was already building me this feeder and he brought it up to me that Thanksgiving! We didn’t fill it this summer because the birds are messy, leaving seed shells all over the balcony. (And, between you & me, last summer, some of the bird seed fell on the grass below our balcony and grew into crabgrass! Oops!) Once the temperature drops, we will fill it up again. Presley and I are already looking forward to cardinal-watching this winter!

Here’s a close-up of the little chickadee drawings on the side.

My dad has been building bird feeders and bird houses for as long as I remember. And he is generous to give them to our family and friends. Besides the feeder, we have three of his bird houses on the balcony.

The one made with reclaimed wood,

the barn-style

and the Colonial house-style (also made with reclaimed wood). This one sits on the floor, and is meant more for decoration than an actual bird home.

And, even though no birds have taken up residence in any of the houses, I still have hopes that someday we will have a little neighbor or two out there!

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Sep 20 2012
6 Comments
home is a 1970s apartment, homemaking

settling into fall

I’m not a huge fan of smelling up the house with fake fragrance. You can keep your Glade Plug-Ins and that weird air freshener that automatically sprays when you’re in the room. But I do enjoy a nice, subtle candle scent every now and again. And I tend to change out my scents with the season.

My favorite candles lately are Paddywax. I just put away the summery scented Newly Mown Hay. (It smells deliciously of Saturday mornings in my childhood home when all of the neighbors mowed their lawns.) But the days of yard work, flip flops and sunhats are numbered. The air feels crisp and the nights are chilly. It feels so good to sleep under our heavy blanket with the windows open, blowing in fresh fall air.  Yesterday, I pulled out the cold weather candle: Edgar Allan Poe. To me, it smells like fall–nice and spicy warm cardamom, absinthe and sandlewood. I’m going to light it tonight and curl up on the couch with my book club stories for October. We are reading three detective stories, in the spirit of Halloween, and one of them happens to be Poe.

Breaking out the fall candle opens up the gates for fall decorating…and pumpkin lattes…I see some autumn bliss in my future…

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Sep 18 2012
1 Comment
handmade=happiness, homemaking

handmade is happiness #1

Naoto likes to joke that my iPad is my favorite gift (Presley gave it to me for my birthday this year. She is very thoughtful & generous.) While I do use the iPad quite often, I would never consider something hard, cold and electronic as my fave…no matter how much I use it.

But he did get me thinking, what are some of my favorite gifts? So, I’ve decided to share some of my best-loved gifts here on the blog…

One of the first gifts that came to mind are these kitchen towels that my mother made for my wedding shower.

Growing up, I knew my mom had embroidery supplies, but only because we pilfered the floss for friendship bracelets. It never occurred to the childhood me that she actually could embroider…so imagine my surprise when I opened such a heartfelt and handmade gift!

When visitors see the towels hanging in my kitchen, they are sometimes surprised that I use the towels. (What else am I supposed to do with them? Keep them folded up in a drawer?) Well, I do use them, a lot, for everything from drying dishes and drying herbs to sopping up messes (everything I do in the kitchen results in a mess lately) and wearing them as aprons. And every time I use them, I think of my mom, the ultimate mother & homemaker. xoxo

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Aug 06 2012
5 Comments
home is a 1970s apartment, summer manifesto

the tiny tv

We are in the market for a new TV. Right now, we watch the tiny 13-inch television I got for a Christmas gift sometime in the mid-nineties. It was my college TV. And, it is not Hi-Def or flat screen (in case you couldn’t tell), it’s a tube TV…so basically, an antique. Also, to see the TV from the kitchen, I sometimes use binoculars…especially if I need to check the score of a game or something. When it comes time to get rid of it, I’m not even sure Goodwill will take it. (I placed a stapler next to the TV below for scale.)

Why have we lived so long with such a tiny TV? This one fits perfectly in the cabinet (which is really a wine/liquor cabinet from Ikea). It’s so convenient. (I mean, who doesn’t want to mix a cocktail and watch Law & Order?) And, I’ve been really picky about what I want to set the TV on (since nothing larger than a 13-inch will fit in our current cabinet!) I didn’t want to buy something from Ikea; I wanted something with a little more character. I originally had been searching for a decently priced Mid-Century Modern credenza, but that has proved impossible since Mid-Century is so “in” right now. Then, last month we were at Yearbook, a little designer antique store here in Forest Park, and I fell in love with a beat up old hardware store (?) cabinet with lots of little labeled drawers. Naoto noticed my expression, went right up to the counter and bought it for me! I didn’t even protest…it was too sweet! (My husband sure knows the way to my heart–vintage furniture!)

So, we didn’t have a plan for the hardware store fixture (Does anybody else out there buy furniture without a plan?) , but it is the right height for a TV and it has the uniqueness I was looking for. I hate shopping for electronics–it’s such an investment & I know nothing about these newfangled new televisions, but the search begins this weekend. It’s time to take the plunge into the 21st century!

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Jul 02 2012
1 Comment
coffee talk

coffee talk | choosing a coffee maker

Naoto & I buy our coffees out almost every day. (I know, I know…”think of what else you could do with that money!” I hear it from people–and in my own head–all the time.) For me, it’s a perfect start to my day when I get up with Naoto and walk him to the train. We chat about our plans for the day, our plans for the evening and our night’s sleep (I tell Naoto in great detail about my nightly dreams. He doesn’t dream, so I’m sure he finds this fascinating.) We stop at Dunkin Donuts (don’t judge–their coffee is the BEST!) and I let Naoto buy our coffees and we go our separate ways. He goes to the train, I go home to Presley. Everyone at “our” Dunk knows us and our orders. (I am super particular about the amount of sugar they put in.)

But lately, I’ve been missing making coffee at home. We’ve been researching coffee makers since we got married and have been unable to find one that gets consistently good ratings. The coffee pot we own now (that giant white thing in the right background) was mine when I got my first apartment in 2000. (Yes, it’s a Philips brand–and you thought they only made televisions!) It actually makes decent coffee and the carafe really keeps the coffee hot for a long time. But it’s big and clumsy and is an eyesore on our counter. I hate getting rid of something that works perfectly well just because of looks, but it takes up so much room on the counter.

For now, I’ve given up on drip coffee makers and have gotten reacquainted with my French press. It was one of those wedding gifts that has been languishing in the cabinet for six years. We bought some coffee in Iowa (who knew Iowa had so much tastiness to offer–first gin, now coffee!) and I’ve been grinding it at home (because a coffee grinder was another wedding gift) and making a little pot of coffee for myself. It’s super strong, and super delicious. And, when I make my coffee at home, I drink it black–no cream or sugar like my Dunkin coffees. The only problems I have: first, I always want more than one pot. Our French press holds 32oz…not nearly enough tasty goodness. (One benefit of purchasing coffee outside the home: it is a good way to restrict your addiction to 20oz per day.) Second, the pot doesn’t stay piping hot. And third, it’s really not enough for a crowd (It’s hard to share when there’s only 32 ounces!) For now, the French press is the best option, but I’m keeping my eyes open for something better.

How do you make your coffee?

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